


Communication

by bofurrific



Series: Hobbit Drabbles [41]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Iglishmêk, Language Barrier, Sign Language, and ori is cute, bifur is a sweetie ok, it got away from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:17:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bofurrific/pseuds/bofurrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink Meme Fill</p><p>Ori isn't quite sure at first, but he thinks Bifur has taken a liking to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Communication

Ori is quiet and bookish and spent most of his childhood in the libraries. He and his brothers live in the Blue Mountains and because there are villages of men all around them, khuzdul is rarely spoken and Ori doesn't learn it at the proper age.

In fact, he doesn't learn it at all until he and his brothers are chased from their village by Nori's illegal doings and into another that is home to a toymaker with an axe in his head. He frightens Ori at first, with his grunts of a language he doesn't fully know and wild hand gestures, but his cousin, an ever-smiling dwarf with a strange hat, rushes forward and explains to Dori their predicament and the toymaker, Bifur he later learns, seems almost sad and resigned when Ori backs away in fear.

Ori cannot stand to see someone upset on his account, even if he did not mean any offense, and he stays in the library and makes himself learn, both aglab and iglishmek, and returns to the little shop with a timid smile and says hello. Bifur lights up and responds animately, so quickly that Ori has to ask him to slow down, but he spends the day at the shop, watching the toymaker interact with the children of the village and when he goes home he is warm with happiness and Bifur's smiles. 

As Ori's strength in their secret language increases, so do the visits with Bifur. He catches a snippet of the cousins talking in hushed voices in the back of the shop that Bifur is getting better, and he wonders how bad off the dwarf was before. It doesn't seem polite to ask, but he brings Bifur lunch one day and the dwarf tells him that he once had a wife and a son, that orcs had attacked and killed them, had left him this way.

Bifur gets violent when he talks about it, knocks over the table and breaks a line of toys, and Ori is pressed against a wall and trembling in fear when Bifur finally calms down. But he doesn't leave, doesn't run away. Bifur's eyes are wet and angry, but he isn't crying, standing there heaving breaths until Ori's lays a tentative hand on his arm.

Things are a little strained between them for a few weeks and Ori thinks he must have been wrong when he thought that Bifur might like him. But one day he is passing the shop with Dori and Bofur, Bifur's cousin with the hat, gives the toymaker a gentle shove and he stumbles over to Ori and apologizes. Ori understands now that he was ashamed of frightening him and had kept his distance because of it. Ori ignores the look Dori is giving him and tells Bifur there is nothing to forgive.

Dori questions him for days afterward of his intentions with the toymaker, threatens to go to Bifur himself when Ori has no answer, until Nori tells him to get his head out of his ass and stop mothering him. Nori gives him a wink and Ori flushes because really, nothing is going on between him and the toymaker.

Bifur often catches Ori drawing and he slips the parchment from beneath the young scribe's arms, quickly trying to hide it, and finds wonderfully drawn pictures of the dwarves, the village, the children and one that Ori tries to snatch back from him, of himself. He doesn't say anything, but touches his drawn face, the axe in his temple, and offers Ori a soft smile before giving it back to him and nodding in appreciation.

A dwarf comes to see Ori's brothers late one night. He is solemn and sad and regal, and his brothers tell him later that the dwarf was a prince in Erebor long ago. They are cousins, albeit distantly, and the king has come to see if they will join him on a great quest to reclaim their homeland. They were once lords, Ori's family, and Dori says it would be nice to see the mountain again, for he is the only one of them old enough to remember it, and to reclaim their status as nobles, and not scribes or thieves. Nori is less eager to join, but the thought of that gold, mountains of it locked up in the mountains, is enough to turn him.

They forbid Ori from joining them, tell him he's too young to travel so far, across lands of orcs and men and elves to where a dragon awaits him, and Ori is partway glad that they are so worried, but mostly angry and defiant that they want to leave him behind, that they must think him so useless. He waits until they leave to run to Bifur's toyshop, and finds it empty.

Bofur is there instead, grumbling that his cousin had run off with the king in the hopes of hunting down the orc whose axe is in his head, says he left without proper food or a bedroll and now he and Bombur had to chase after him and make sure nothing happened.

Ori is crestfallen for an instant, to think that all the dwarves he knows well in the village are off on a glorious adventure and he is left here alone. He makes up his mind then, that he is enough of an adult, and follows in his brothers footsteps.

They all meet up, Ori and his brothers and Bifur and his cousins, at a bridge in Bree, a few leagues from a hobbit's hole, and Dori is furious that he has followed them, demands he return home this instant, and Nori chuckles and says he must have passed on his penchant for misconduct to his baby brother, which makes Ori grin gratefully at him. 

He gives Bifur a timid look, for the toymaker is frowning down at him, but the older dwarf sighs, rests a hand on his shoulder and motions for him to stay safe. They are joined later by Oin and Gloin, brothers from Erebor, who strike up a conversation with Dori, allowing Ori and Bifur to fall to the back of the group. Bifur slips a hand into Ori's and gives is a squeeze as they stop before a round green door bearing a wizard's mark. 

Dori rings the bell and while they wait for an answer, Bifur leans down and steals a kiss from Ori's cheek. The door rips open and they tumble forward onto one another, and Ori has just enough time to think that he wasn't wrong after all about Bifur liking him, before Bombur topples over and crushes them all on the hobbit's floor.


End file.
